The momentum is growing. Every day the calls to decertify or otherwise disband the NHLPA are growing. And I don't mean from NHL players.

No, hockey fans and media alike are now so fed up with what passes for collective bargaining in the NHL that they want to blow up the entire system. We're not talking just decertifying for the purposes of forcing the NHL to actually make a deal under threat of anti-trust lawsuits, i.e. what the NHL is alleging and what the NHLPA surely intends to do.

No, there are now calls to permanently abolish the NHLPA and in so doing completely free up all restrictions to player movement, including the NHL draft.

As a sportswriter, I've been guilty of letting my gut overrule my head more than once, with decidedly mixed results. I find myself rolling the dice again as I contemplate the possibility of the Edmonton Oilers making the playoffs this season – assuming the NHL gets around to playing one in January.

While we wait to see if the lockout will actually end, Ales Hemsky is scoring goals at rate he hasn't seen in 12 years. In the 2000/2001season Hemsky was a rookie with the Hull Olympiques of the QMJHL. He scored 36 goals and 100 points in 68 games enroute to being drafted 13th overall.

Since his rookie season in Hull, he has never scored as often as he is this year for Pardubice in the Czech Republic.

Well it hasn't been the merriest of Christmas seasons this year has it? Instead of squeezing present shopping around Hockey Night in Canada or Battles of Alberta, we've had to put up with histrionic lawyers at press conferences, game cancellation announcements and endless debates about which side of the labor argument is more reprehensible.